Incomplete And Utter History Of Classical Music

ARS IS NOT TO REASON WHY

? ver the next seventy years or so, some important things gathered momentum in the world of music. This was a period when what was known as the 'ars antique was still the in thing. Meaning, literally, the old art, it was a term used only retrospectively for what was going on about now. It didn't really get its name until someone coined the term 'ars nova1 - new art - which was generally a freeing up from all the styles and some of the rules of the ars antiqua.

The big three in the world of ars antiqua would have to be Leonin, Perotin and Robert de Sabilon. Leonin was often referred to as an 'optimus organista? - or 'very good when it comes to writing those lovely medieval-sounding harmonies' - and lots of his stuff still survives to this day. Perotin was the top man at Notre Dame in Paris for a time. De Sabilon also worked out of Paris, doing things you wouldn't believe with independent melodies. In fact, Paris was pretty big, generally, around now, and Notre Dame particularly. There were lots of troubadours, and minstrels all gathered in the city alongside monks and men of learning. It strikes me that it might have been not dissimilar to the turn of twentieth-century Paris, where artists, musicians and thinkers all gathered to form a steamy, Bohemian cafe-culture. This went on to leave its own heady mark on the arts in general, both then and now. One thing is certain, though, and that's that, in both periods, the cappuccinos were almost certainly cheaper.